


More Than the Average Stitch in These Times

by inthisdive



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:53:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3693030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written in 2009. Every time Kelly complains she hears disparaging tones and sees waggled fingers and there are "tsk tsks" and "do you really want another My Decembers."  Kelly wants to say that it's exactly what she wants, but somewhere in the Davis dance, she has lost her voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than the Average Stitch in These Times

__

> _  
> But straight girls require more than the catchy lesbian line  
>  they need more than the average stitch   
> in these times of weak-kneed freedoms  
> the bi-curious require a puss' whole nine lives  
> as they move in for the kill  
> it is a skill they perfect in the practice of rejection  
> it is the only protection they know in a world   
> where ladies are encouraged to toe the only line allowed_

*

Kelly has been reigned in by the label, Kelly is playing nice and singing _my life would suck without you_ and being airbrushed and keeping her mouth shut and denying rumors and being, basically, a good girl; she's like an MGM studio player from the 1930s who is generally seen and not heard and every move is dictated, planned. She's a step away, she knows, from a fucking arranged marriage. And every time she complains she hears disparaging tones and sees waggled fingers and there are _tsk tsks_ and _do you really want another My Decembers._ Kelly wants to say that it's exactly what she wants, but somewhere in the Davis dance, she has lost her voice.

When that happens, when she is cowed and Hollywood and silent, she climbs into her hot-pink Cadillac and she goes back out to Texas for a breather. Texas, beloved Texas, home of the property that stretches out to the horizon and the sky that lives forever; where the only plastic she sees is packaging. Where she can stop and take a minute to reflect. Where she can breathe. Texas is home, and home is where Kelly's heart is. 

Well, sometimes.

To make sure her heart is part of the going-home deal, she packs her car and on the locked out side of her front door, she takes out her cell phone and dials Tamyra's number.

*

Tamyra's in between studio sessions and Kelly manages to talk her out of Georgia and into Texas; home-cooked meals courtesy of Kelly's mom are better than meals either girl has to prepare, after all, and when Kelly swings around to pick up Tamyra, she plays the game she always plays: there is no Sam inside the house. No Kieran. She feels like a bitch every time she does it, but damnit, a girl has to keep herself sane with a crush sometimes. 

She considers just sounding the horn, but that's rude, and Kelly _does_ have manners, even if she's a bitch that wishes her friend wasn't married, and she gets out and climbs the porch steps and rings the bell. As she waits, one hand flies to the waistband of her jeans, hitches them up. They're the most uncomfortable kind of low-riders, ill-fitting and too-low, but they look great under her sweater, gray and clinging-soft-wool. It's a sacrifice, and usually one she wouldn't make unless there was a stage involved. But she's made worse for Tamyra before.

Tamyra comes to the door with her hair in two bunched pigtails beneath a newsboy cap and a smile that illuminates the whole world, and she squeals - "Kelly!" - And captures her in an embrace. Kelly hugs back, of course; warm and tight and slightly needy, slightly _telling_ ; Hollywood sucks sometimes but Tamyra never, ever does. If there was ever a list of great things Simon Fuller had ever done for her, the introduction to Tamyra would have to be top of the list.

"It's so good to see you," Kelly says in almost-murmur as they pull back, capturing Tamyra's hands loosely in her own. 

Tamyra is dazzling. "It's even better to see you! This getaway is the best idea, I am _wiped out_." She mimed wiping sweat from her brow and Kelly clapped her hands together in delightful. Dorky behavior was hot, and Tamyra had it in spades. 

"Exhausting recording sessions?" 

"Exactly," Tamyra replies, but she hesitates - and Kelly notices, but she hesitates that same way sometimes, when she doesn't want to sound ungrateful but something sucks, or when there's something that's too awkward or too delicate to say. 

She knows just the solution. "So let's get the hell out of this town!" she declares, and she and Tamyra, in an unspoken agreement, link arms with each other and walk out to the car, their faces upturned to that pale, barely-there sun. 

Sam calls good-bye, and Tamyra waves back at the open door.

*

They stop to rest in Tucson and check into a hotel. They use fake names just for fun, and when they go out for a burger dinner they keep it up, calling each other 'Sidney and Nancy' all through the register line. They are travelworn and drowsy, comfortable in their skin and in each other's space, and already Kelly can feel the stormclouds disappear; already Kelly can hear the music again and not just the repeating techno-synth; she hears chords and notes and composition and feels real, earthy, womanly. 

She thinks, fuck my _curves_ and upsizes her fries.

*

There are twin beds in the hotel room, and they're lying there with the lights off, a streetlight battling with the blinds for a sliver of light in the dead of night. Kelly isn't asleep, not yet, and she can tell that Tamyra isn't sleeping either, can tell by her breathing, how _conscious_ it seems, not quite rhythmic. 

"Tamyra," she says quietly, almost a whisper, "You awake?" 

"Wide," Tamyra says, shifting in her bed to look over at Kelly. "Just thinking."

Kelly knew that feeling. "Remember last year? No, not last year. Oh-seven." Her toes curl as she asks the question, her inner cinema screen assaulted with imagery. "New York City?" 

"Oh, man, Rent," Tamyra replies, eyes closed. "I was so - and then..." 

And then. It's the _and then_ that keeps Kelly going, sometimes; it's the _and then_ that reminds her of punch-drunk fleeting-moment happy. She remembers a refuge between My December and its aftermath; she remembers Out Tonight and Tamyra on stage and the way the lights made her skin shine like something precious. Most of all, she remembers backstage. 

"When we," Kelly says, and she doesn't need to finish the sentence because surely, surely Tamyra remembers backstage, too. 

"When we." 

The girls are silent for a few moments, and then Kelly says, "I'd never kissed someone like that before." And then she adds, "I'd never fallen in love before."

There's another silence, this one harder to bear. A breeze flutters the blinds and for a few seconds Tamyra and Kelly are lit up, the bright edges of silhouettes, and everything seems so honest when there is light; Kelly can't look over at Tamyra, can't look anywhere but at that streetlight-cut-ribbon of gold and curl deeper into the blankets, into the bed. It kills her, being this raw, and she remembers why she never does it. 

"I'm sorry," is all Tamyra says, her voice soft and delicate; a kitten instead of lioness. Kelly doesn't talk again that night. She is a sound sleeper, and she falls asleep with a faint trace of tears on her pale cheeks. 

*

When she wakes, Tamyra is crowded into her bed and curved against her spine, a hand on her breast and lips beneath her ear. Kelly startles, shifts, and Tamyra murmurs, "It's okay, baby. I'm here when you need me." 

And Kelly settles. If that's all she can have, well... she'll take what she can get.


End file.
